Miami music lessons in home is a great way to learn how to play an instrument and become a practicing, playing, flourishing musician. If you pay close attention during the lesson, and practice as much as possible, there is nothing stopping you from achieving every goal and living every dream you may have. This is the ideal. However, becoming a student of music requires some hard work and patience. And while learning these skills helps a student become a better musician and a more mature, hard-working member of society, these attention and work skills may not necessarily be present from the get-go. For the ever-common case of the attention-wandering, stimulation-craving student, we have fun and games.
Fun
Playing an instrument is quite possibly the most fun activity a person can be involved in but let’s face it – sometimes, the process can get a little stale. As music teachers and seasoned musicians, we are used to some of the boring, note exercises that are necessary in making us become better players. However, new students need to be eased into this sort of practice by using creative methods of making them seem more fun and exciting. We can use games in this way to get that practicing in.
Games
First of all, everything is a game if there are points involved. Providing even the smallest incentive for practicing can completely change a child’s attitude regarding the practice. I invested in a small white board for my Miami music lessons in home students. I can sometimes use this board to keep track of “points” during different parts of the lesson. Even something as simple as “If you play through this exercise without stopping, you get a point” and/or “If you keep your eyes on the music, you get a point” and/or “If you hit a wrong note, I get a point” can have a huge effect on how much attention the student will give the exercise, how much they will practice at home, how much they enjoy the lesson and how much they enjoy it when they beat you.
The Power Of Tic Tac Toe
Everyone loves tic tac toe! The game is genius in its simplicity and if used correctly can be a lot of fun and very productive as well. I like to use it for the “boring” theory stuff or basic exercises. I have a method book that most of my students are not crazy about because of the basic but necessary exercises they need to practice. The exercises are all numbered. On my tic tac toe game on my little white board, I write a different exercise number in each square. In order for my student to get an “x” (my students always go first) in the spot they want, they have to play the exercise 4 times through with a metronome. This can otherwise be a very daunting task, but when tic tac toe is involved, we have a blast!
Hangman
Yes, even hangman can be used as a music game, which is great because it is one of my students‘ favorite games. Basically, I come up with a word or phrase (music-related of course) and my students guess letters. The catch is, in order to guess a letter, they have to play an exercise first, or answer a question about music. It’s as simple as that! The students love the game aspect and are not at all reluctant to play basic warm-up exercises.
Conclusion
As you can see, almost any game can become a music-related exercise, and any exercise can be turned into a game. This is a fantastic way of breaking up the monotony of “play this, now play that”. If the students are having fun, they will definitely be more excited about lessons, and the material. Once they see the progress they make playing seemingly boring exercises, they’ll become hooked like the rest of us and be well on their way to becoming flourishing musicians.
Are you ready to get started? Contact us today!
